1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a method for optimizing digital images, and particularly to image registration of digital images.
2. Description of Background
Many imaging systems, for example medical imaging systems, use a method for automatically recognizing and labeling structures in images. For example, an image taken of an abdomen of a patient will show a variety of anatomical structures, such as a spine and arteries. Imaging systems may process the image to identify and label various anatomical structures.
Registration with an atlas is a method for automatic recognition and labeling of anatomical structures in images. An atlas is a set of data such as an image and associated data, having identified and labeled anatomical structures in the image. When a similar image is taken of a patent, the atlas may be used to register the images. The image taken of a patient is registered by a process of finding a dense transformation between the atlas image and the image taken of a patent. The registration allows automatic identification and labeling of anatomical structures.
Application of an atlas to some portions of the human body such as, for example, the human abdomen is challenging because of inter-patient morphological variability and the large number of structures present in the abdomen.
A method that allows an atlas to be used to optimize and register complicated images is desired.